


To Be What You Desire to Appear

by coffee_mage



Series: Permanence, perseverance and persistence [2]
Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: BAMF Phil Coulson, Phil is the biggest badass ever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-15 06:07:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/523972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffee_mage/pseuds/coffee_mage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being extraordinarily ordinary can really stall out a man's career.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Phil felt for a pulse and sighed.  “Target neutralized,” he murmured down his comm, as he wound his garrotte around his hand and tucked it into his pocket efficiently.  

“Good work, agent,” came Nick’s voice.  Of course, the bastard would be congratulating Phil himself after the latest rejection.   

“Thank you, sir.”  Phil started out of the room, straightening his tie and heading for the front door.  He looked every bit the consummate professional—cell phone in its pouch at his belt, suit perfectly pressed, his eyeline just below shoulder level as he walked quickly and purposefully.

“Don’t thank me yet.”

 Phil kept his expression neutral even as he fumed.  No, he wouldn’t be thanking Nick any time soon.  He might say the words because he was supposed to, but he was livid.  He’d put in the application seven times now and been refused every time, despite being twice as qualified as Sitwell, who had finally made handler after his fourth application.  When Phil had pushed for answers, he’d been told he was too good at his current position, that he was better used as an asset than as a handler.  It made Phil wish he was terrible at his job, in some ways, even though that would probably have gotten him killed a dozen times over.  

 “We have a new objective for you.”

 Phil steeled himself as he waited for the next bit.  A new objective was rarely a good thing, in his experience.  Insufficient intel was a common denominator of last-minute objectives on otherwise successful missions.  If it ended with a satisfactory outcome, it was a victory.  If it ended with a positive outcome, it was a minor miracle and Phil didn’t believe in God.

 “There’s another player after the target.  We need you to take his position and put him down before he has time to realize the target’s already down.”

 Phil definitely wasn’t going to enjoy this one, he thought as he stepped out the front doors and into the bustling street.  If he needed to take a position, it meant sneaking up on a sniper.  He hated snipers.  They were good at noticing things and Phil was good at his job precisely because he was good at being unnoticed.  

 “You’re going to walk three buildings north to 177.  He’s on the 32nd floor, six windows from the southeast corner.  He’s not using typical ordinance.”

 Atypical ordinance for a sniper.  That explained why Nick had called him to this straight away.  The mercenary who called himself Hawkeye was here and there were standing orders for any and all SHIELD teams who encountered him to take him out.  So far, they had been unable to make contact, but he had taken up arms against SHIELD’s allies and he could not be allowed to live.

 Phil moved quickly, smiling apologetically as he pushed into an elevator that was already full.  “Sorry about that.  Already late and I don’t want to get chewed out again,” he said quietly.  “Boss has been riding my ass all week.”  Various elevator users nodded and muttered their sympathies as they shuffled around to make room.  

 “Is that really what you think, agent?” came Nick’s voice in his ear.

 Phil didn’t respond, couldn’t respond, as crowded as it was.  He just waited for his floor, moving with the flow of people, as he considered which direction he’d have to move and how to find Hawkeye.  This was the closest they’d ever gotten to him, Phil was not going to let this opportunity pass him by.  A small part of him was excited and it reminded him what he liked about his job.  He was going to be the one to put an end to Hawkeye.  He was going to stop a man who had killed more people than SHIELD probably knew about and who had done it, not for his convictions, but for the money.  That was the whole reason that Phil had spent so long training and becoming the best he could at every aspect of his job.

 The doors opened to his floor and he was relieved to be the only one getting off.  Good.  No one asking questions about the new guy.  That was always a bonus.  In fact, the halls were empty.  It was odd, for the middle of a work day and a bit of scaffolding in a doorway explained both why it was empty and why Hawkeye had chosen this floor.  No one was working now, though, there was no background noise, and this made Phil’s job much more difficult.  “Nearly in position.  Can’t risk speaking after this point.”

 “Acknowledged.”  There was tension in Nick’s voice.  It was obvious he wanted Hawkeye dead and fast.

 Phil moved silently through the hallway, heading for the corner and then counting back.  Three windows per door, it looked like.  Hawkeye was behind the second door, then.  Phil drew his weapon and contemplated the best possible approach for about three seconds before deciding to smash the frosted glass panel in the door and shoot the sniper.

 Of course, there’s never enough intel on a last-minute job.  


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad intel.

Phil shifted his weight to kick in the glass, then froze when something sharp pressed against the base of his skull, ready to sever his upper spine.  

“Who the hell do you work for?” growled a voice.

“You’re sort of a piss-poor interrogator,” Phil said.

“Yeah.  Right.  That’s why you’re on the receiving end.”

Phil rolled his eyes, allowing himself that moment to ask the universe why he never encountered anyone who was actually competent, then spun around, ducking and kicking out at Hawkeye’s ankles.

Hawkeye looked surprised by this, as he started inefficiently countering Phil’s attack.  He was clearly used to ranged combat and he didn’t cover himself well, swinging his bow like a club, trying to use the superior reach he gained with that to hook Phil or knock him out, Phil wasn’t sure which.  Phil practically danced circles around him, staying inside the threat range of the bow.  Unfortunately, this meant that Phil was too close to get his gun up.

The fight ended when Hawkeye attempted to garotte Phil with his still-strung bowstring, to which Phil responded by turning his head to the side and ducking down, while flatly saying “Really?”  He drove his rear backwards into Hawkeye’s crotch, which rewarded Phil with a satisfying grunt, then kicked Hawkeye in the shin before spinning around and bringing Hawkeye down on the floor.  A moment later, he was kneeling on Hawkeye’s chest, Hawkeye’s bow gone wide and Phil’s gun in Hawkeye’s mouth.

Phil took a moment, while Nick asked him for an update on his status, to let his impressions of the target hit him.  Hawkeye was young.  Not a teenager, no, older than that, but their intel put him at least five years, if not closer to ten years, older than he was.  Given that they’d already been chasing him for years, he’d been barely out of his teens when he started up.  Phil tipped his head to one side and totally ignored Nick.  He wished he could pull his earpiece out, but SHIELD had given him one of their new implanted models, one he couldn’t turn off while on an op.  He didn’t like the idea of killing this guy.  He was young, he was malleable.  He could still make a valuable asset.  They already knew he was the best sniper on the planet, bar none.  It seemed just wasteful to throw away a resource so easily.  There was potential here and it seemed like no one else could see it, like perhaps no one ever had and, in that moment, Phil realized what he needed to do here.

“Do you want to live?” Phil asked, not moving his gun in the slightest.

Hawkeye just looked resigned and didn’t meet Phil’s eyes.

Nick was yelling now, and it was hard to ignore.  “Agent!  Shoot him!  Agent!”

“Do. You. Want. To. Live?  You have less than five seconds to nod.  Any movement other than a nod will get you shot and you won’t recover from that.”  Phil drove the gun deeper into Hawkeye’s mouth and the man gagged around it.

There was a moment, with the countdown running in Phil’s head and Nick yelling at him that he was going to be written up for this, demoted, punished, something, just wait and see, where Phil thought that Hawkeye wasn’t going to nod.  The man stared straight past Phil’s shoulder for four seconds and then, suddenly, his eyes locked on Phil’s and he nodded.  

Phil wasn’t equipped for an apprehension.  He didn’t have handcuffs or rope.  Still not moving his gun, Phil reached into his pocket and grabbed his garrotte. “You’re going to follow my instructions very, very carefully.  If you deviate even slightly, you will die.  If you do not understand an instruction, lay perfectly still and tell me you do not understand.  Is that clear?  You may nod.”

Again, it took a second for him to move, though Hawkeye’s gaze didn’t leave Phil’s face.  Then a nod.

“Good.  That’s good.”  Phil smiled slightly, a smile meant to be comforting.  From the look on Hawkeye’s face, it wasn’t, terribly.  “I’m going to get off of you and move around to be right above your head.  You will remain perfectly still until I am kneeling again.  My gun will not leave your mouth.”

Nod.

Phil started to get up, watching carefully.  Hawkeye stayed perfectly still.  His eyes didn’t even move from where Phil’s face had been.  Disciplined, this sniper.  He knew how to obey orders.  Point in his favour.  Big point, actually.  Phil would have felt relieved, but Nick was still screaming in his ear.  As he knelt down, he sighed.  “Sir, I need you to be quiet.  I’m bringing Hawkeye in.”

“You do not have authorization to do that.  I repeat, you do NOT have authorization.  Your orders are—“

“I thought that I was an adaptable agent, sir, whose judgement in the field was beyond reproach.  If you choose to toss that aside, then what point is there in keeping me in the field?”

Hawkeye’s eyes widened and then he looked entirely disbelieving.  Clearly, Phil realized, the man was intelligent, probably nearly as adaptable as Phil himself.  Phil slowly withdrew his gun from Hawkeye’s mouth, moving it to sit against the bottom of his chin.  

“Is there something you want to say?” Phil asked, as Nick went silent.

“You’re keeping me alive as some kind of power play, aren’t you?”

Phil shrugged.  “You’re useful right now.  Don’t ever forget that your survival depends on you continuing to be useful.”

“Yes sir.”  Hawkeye’s face went blank, very still.

“You are not to move until I say go. The first thing you’re going to do is roll onto your front.  You will keep your face tipped to the side so I can keep my gun where it is and you are going to cross your wrists behind your back and cross your legs at your ankles.  Is that clear?”

“Yes sir.”

“Go.”  Phil kept his gun trained as Hawkeye did exactly as he was asked and Phil started to relax marginally.  “I’m going to remove my gun and tie your wrists and ankles together.  If you move, I will kill you.”

“Yes sir.”

Phil did as he had said he would, having to tie the garrotte awkwardly, it not being long enough for this task, really.  “Now you’re going to walk me through every weapon on your person and I will remove them.  If you fail to tell me about a weapon, when my allies come here to collect you and we stip search you, we will find it.  If we find a weapon you have failed to tell me about, I will shoot you in the head. Go.”

Hawkeye nodded and started listing weapons and places on his person.  Then, without prompting, he moved on to weapons that were stashed in other parts of the building, though Phil wasn’t going to be collecting those up right away.  It was, even to Phil, a rather impressive number.  

By the third set of throwing knives, Nick had started up again.  By the time Phil had all the weapons piled up, Nick was crossing lines.  “We have agents converging on your location, Coulson.  You are going to hand Hawkeye over to them and let them deal with it.”

“No, sir, I won’t be doing that.”

“You are clearly compromised, agent.  You will step aside when they arrive and you will come in without protest.”

“No.  I will stay with him and ensure his treatment.”

“What part of ‘shoot him’ don’t you understand?”

“The part where I’ve taken the asset acquisition course and I got the highest score in the history of said course.”

“This is not—“

“Seven times.”

“Is this really how you want this to play out?  You want to be Hawkeye’s handler?”

Phil almost froze for a second there, before regaining his composure.  The thought had crossed his mind, had come to him early on, but he’d been sure those words would never cross Nick’s lips.  He had been sure that Hawkeye would be whisked away, far away from Phil, the moment the team converged, but here was a chance.  He could take Nick’s sarcasm and turn it around on him.

Phil looked Hawkeye over more carefully.  The man was rough around the edges.  He was a sniper, and snipers didn’t typically love working in teams.  He had given each of his last four jobs serious trouble when he changed the parameters of his contract.  He was going to be a handful, not the kind of agent that Phil had wanted for his very first asset.  Phil took a deep breath.  “I accept the promotion, sir.  Thank you.”


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A battle of wills.

Phil slapped down the stack of files on the table. “The junior agents have given you a run down on what we have in these, haven’t they?”

Hawkeye shrugged, keeping his head down, letting his messy hair cover any hope Phil had of seeing his face.

Phil stood there, silently, letting it draw out for a couple of agonizingly awkward minutes. “Are you going to answer me?”

Another shrug.

Just what Phil needed as his first asset. He'd expected attitude, of course, when he'd taken his training, but he hadn't expected to collect his first asset from a kill assignment. He'd expected sarcastic, know-it-all junior agents, not the man who sat in front of him. “All right then. Stand up. We’re going down to the range.”

Hawkeye looked at him, letting Phil get his first evaluation of the man's face since the field, but silently stood. He had a black eye and about three days' worth of stubble.

Phil checked Hawkeye’s restraints. “The junior agents could use some live practise and, if you’re not going to cooperate, I may as well let someone get some use of you.” He grabbed the handcuffs and started pushing Hawkeye ahead of him roughly.

“Live practise?” There was a vague hint of interest in the sniper's voice.  Something to note.  Practise or perhaps the range animated him.  Phil would have to investigate further.

“It’s hard to pull the trigger and kill someone for the first time, or don't you remember? Has it been that long for you?  Anyway, sometimes, we like to execute criminals on the range. It lets the juniors get their first kill jitters out in a safe environment.”

Hawkeye dug his heels in, slowing down and looking around.  “I thought you were recruiting me.”

Phil shrugged. “So did I. But I have orders to execute you if you show signs of non-cooperation. Failure to respond to direct questions falls under that category.”

“Yes.”

“Sorry?” Phil gave Hawkeye the blandest, most vague expression he could muster.

“Yes, they briefed me on what you have on me. They even dug up my juvenile record from Ames and how the hell you got that, I'll never know.”

Phil nodded and then stepped back from Hawkeye. “Back to your chair, then. That’s rule one. You will always, always answer me when I ask a direct question and you will answer me truthfully. The only two acceptable excuses are if you are physically unable to respond or if your position would be compromised by speaking. Should that be the case, I will expect you to tap your microphone to let me know.” Because, nevermind that Phil didn't like Hawkeye yet and wasn't sure he'd ever like him, there was nothing, if the stories were to be believed, worse than being a handler and having your asset go unexpectedly off-grid. The helplessness ate some handlers alive before they completed their first missions and Phil was determined not to be one of those.

Hawkeye sank back into the chair, wrists still crossed behind his back and chained to his waist. “Yes sir.”

Phil opened up the first folder, privately congratulating himself on getting a 'yes sir' out of the belligerent sniper. “Now, we’re going to fill out this paperwork for you, to get you set up with health insurance and wages for your training. You will answer every question truthfully, to the best of your ability. I will be checking the veracity of your statements. Any attempts to deceive me will result in your termination.”

Hawkeye nodded. “Okay.” He was hard to read and Phil didn't like people he couldn't read easily, as a rule.

“So what name do you want to use during your time here at SHIELD? Are we going with the one on your birth certificate, or would you prefer something else?” Hawkeye had over a dozen aliases and each of them looked as legitimate as the one on his birth certificate. It wasn't unusual for SHIELD agents to go by a false name.

“Birth certificate’s fine.”

Phil printed, in block letters, all capitals, in black ink. CLINTON FRANCIS BARTON. “I assume you use the shortform, still?” Phil was already writing it into the box intended for 'preferred name'.

“Yeah.”

They went through the forms together, Hawkeye giving the correct answers right until the end. Finally, Phil pushed another folder, identical to the one in his hand, across the table to Hawkeye. “I’m going to undo the cuffs and you’re going to fill out the forms now. I’ll hold onto this copy and you will be handing that copy in to HR.”

“Is this a test?” Phil shrugged. “It could be. It might not be. Don’t you wish you knew?” How would Hawkeye respond to this? Was he going to rise to it or was he going to whine? What, exactly, was Phil bringing into SHIELD? There was only so much you could learn about someone from their file and Phil had learned all he could about Hawkeye that way.  It was time to start analyzing him, if Phil was going to have any hope of actually making an agent out of him.

 

“Can I just copy off the ones we already did?”

“If you like.” Phil set the completed folder in front of Hawkeye, then got up and went around the table. “I ask you to recall that any individual in this building can kill you nearly as quickly as you can blink. Please don’t attempt to run or to harm me in any way.” He opened the handcuffs.

Hawkeye brought his arms around and rubbed his shoulders, rolling them stiffly. “Yeah, I got it. Not sure what threat you think I could be with both my damned arms asleep.” The man's arms were his livelihood and it made sense to Phil he'd be sensitive to them, but it still gave Phil a little thrill of victory that Hawkeye was already telling him his status so easily. This man was a legend and even distance photos were few and far between. No one in SHIELD had ever had a conversation with the man before and it hadn't been until they'd run his prints in processing that they had found out his birth identity.

“You’ll learn to be a threat that way, if you don’t already know how to be.” Phil smiled and went to sit back down, offering Hawkeye a pen. Hawkeye took it as if taking something small and slimy and started scrawling down words in the boxes, painstakingly copying each letter and word from the forms Phil had filled out in blocky, wavering text. He gripped the pen tightly enough his knuckles were white and he kept his head down.

Phil watched, waited, took care not to meet Hawkeye’s eyes whenever he glanced up. “Stop.” Phil said finally, as Hawkeye filled in a box halfway down the first page.

Hawkeye flinched. “I thought you said to fill this out?”

“I did, didn’t I?” Phil smiled and gazed steadily at Hawkeye as the sniper raised his head.

“So what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to make a choice. You can either finish the forms you’re filling out right now, or you can fill out this form.” Phil pulled, from another folder, a single sheet of paper and handed it over. Hawkeye stared at it uneasily, as if it was going to burn him. He didn't even take it from Phil, just stared at it in Phil's hand.

“Well? Your choice?”

There was a moment of silence. “I don’t need my GED.”

“You’re right, you don’t,” Phil responded amiably.

“So why are you giving me the form?”

“Because you _do_ need the tutoring that comes with it. We need to get you communicating effectively in written word, Agent Barton.”

Hawkeye’s head snapped up and he looked off-balance. “I communicate fine.”

Phil congratulated himself. He could work on internalizing that this man was not just an enemy sniper later, but addressing him as an ally seemed to catch him up short. “You make it a condition of your employment that they give you vocal recordings of the terms of your contracts.”  There was danger here, Phil had to tread carefully.  He knew a lot about Hawkeye, but not what kind of man he was.  This could either shatter him or temper him.

“So I don’t like reading.”

“Your first grade report card indicates that the teachers had concerns about you failing to come up to reading level. You stopped attending school with any regularity when you were ten years old, still having never made it up to reading level. Your third grade teacher suspected dyslexia. Has this ever been addressed?”

Hawkeye shrugged.

Phil sighed dramatically. “Junior agents always need canon fodder.” He started to get to his feet.

“You’re bluffing.” Phil tried not to let his surprise show. It was a very rare man that could see through his poker face. “Maybe now I am, but I wasn’t the first time.”

“I know.”

“Your answer?”

“I don’t need to be good at reading. I can read well enough. I can read maps, I can read diagrams, I can read everything I need to.”

“Okay.” Phil nodded. “Then fill out the rest of the HR form.”

Hawkeye set his jaw and stubbornly went back to the forms. He grunted his displeasure when Phil took the copy he had already filled out. “I thought you said I could copy off that?”

“SHIELD agents are nothing if not adaptable, Agent Barton.  So _adapt._ ”

Hawkeye looked murderous, but he picked the pen back up and started writing, pressing harder into the paper and writing slower than before. He kept it up for ten minutes before finally jumping up from the table and throwing the pen across the room. It quivered, sticking out of the wall not far from Phil’s head, a reminder, for Phil, of exactly what was sitting across the table from him.  A killer.

“I’m not doing this. This is bullshit.”

“Would you like help to fill out the GED form, instead?”

“No, I want you to go fuck yourself. This is bullshit.” Hawkeye's gaze was unnerving as he stared emotionlessly into Phil's face.

“This is recruitment, Agent Barton. During the recruitment process, SHIELD ascertains and tests every possible weakness a prospective agent might have. SHIELD then goes on to offer assistance in making sure no one else can uncover your weaknesses.”  Phil took the GED form back.

“What are you doing?”

“I have enough information. I’m filling it out for you.”

“What if I say no?”

“Then you finish filling out your HR forms.”

Hawkeye made a face and Phil decided to up the ante. “Once you’ve made your choice in regards to the GED or the HR forms, I’ll take you to your quarters. For the current time, you’re considered a flight risk so I’m afraid your accommodations will be minimalistic, but the mattress is new and comfortable and you’ll have access to a shower.”

Hawkeye snatched the GED form from Coulson. He scrawled his name across the bottom with a pen from Phil’s neat little stack. “Go ahead.” He put his head down on the desk, defeated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for how slowly this chapter moves compared to the others. I promise more action in future.


	4. Chapter 3

“Are you even a qualified teacher?” Hawkeye asked, staring down at the books in front of him.  

Phil wasn’t, and he wasn’t happy about this.  Hawkeye—Barton, he was Barton now—needed a much more qualified tutor than Phil was and, frankly, Phil didn’t want to teach elementary crap like this, but he’d been pulled off of everything.  Every single task he had been working on before finding Barton had been taken from him.  Nick had said that if he wanted to be a handler, he could act like one.  His asset was his chief concern and he was not to divide his attention when his asset needed him.  

Phil wasn’t sure he believed this.  Most handlers had a dozen or more assets, so there was no way they were all just dropping everything to be at each asset’s beck and call every time an asset was injured or upset.  Still, he wasn’t going to complain, not aloud.  He knew full well this had to be a trap.  Nick was giving him exactly what he had asked for and was going to push it as hard as he could until Phil came back _begging_ to be made an asset again.  

Phil refused to give him the satisfaction.  “Stop trying to distract me from the lesson and sound out the word, Barton.”

“When the hell am I ever going to need to be able to read up on… on whatever this is, anyway?”  Barton glanced down at the word just long enough to decide he wasn’t going to try, then fixed his stare back on Phil.

That stare.  It was awful and Phil was pretty sure that Barton didn’t need to blink.  It was unnerving, but if Phil said anything, it would probably only get worse.  “Infiltration and espionage are valuable skills.  What if we need you to sneak into an enemy compound and read through a file and report its contents back to us?”

“I’m a fucking sniper.  I shoot people.  It’s what I’m good at.  You aim me.  I’ll fire.  I don’t need to know how to do the rest.”  Barton crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, rocking it on two legs.

Phil opened his mouth to retort, thought better of it, got up and poured himself a cup of coffee before coming back to sit across from Hawkeye.  “Do you like that?”

Barton barely raised an eyebrow at him, grunting in a questioning tone as he did so.

“Being good for exactly one thing and that one thing being a destructive thing, at that?  Do you like that the only thing you’re good at is killing?”  Phil searched Barton’s face, looking for answers, for a wall coming down, anything.  At this point, four days into working with nothing but Barton, Phil wanted a real reaction of any kind.  If he could ever get Barton to actually co-operate, the man’s inability to give anything away was going to be to his benefit.

Barton shrugged.  “You like killing.  You even have classes on making your first kill.  You can’t tell me that me being a really good killer is a bad thing.”

“If that’s your only skill?  Well, let’s just say it makes you incredibly expendable.  We can find people who shoot really well anywhere—“

Barton’s chair came upright with a bang.  “Not ones that can shoot like me!”

“Please.  Snipers are a dime a dozen.”

“And how many snipers do you know that haven’t missed a single shot since they were thirteen years old?”

“None,” Phil said honestly.

Barton’s smile was smug, Phil thought.  Phil didn’t need smug.  “See?  Snipers like me aren’t a dime a dozen.  That’s why you brought me in.”

“I brought you in because I thought you might be useful.  If you can’t be used for anything but shooting people, then you’re not very useful at all.  You’re the kind of asset who will get a pink file.”  Phil shrugged and took a sip of his coffee, waiting for the inevitable question.

“Why pink?”

“We can’t always expect to have an evac plan for every asset, for every mission.  Pink means that you’re considered expendable and, if the risk to our other agents is too high, we won’t attempt a retrieval.”

Barton’s smile slid off his face.  “Okay, now I know you’re fucking with me.  First live fire practice.  Now you have expendable ensigns?  I’m calling bullshit.”

Showed what Barton knew.  SHIELD wasn’t exactly easy on their agents and every single agent knew exactly how they ranked on a scale of expendability that went from ‘throw away like a gum wrapper’ to ‘if everyone else dies, it will be to protect this asset.’  Barton would learn that soon enough.  Another calm sip of coffee.  “That’s nice.  Read the passage.  Answer the questions.  Maybe once you get a little more proficient, you can read our operating manual.”

“I want a different teacher.  I want a different agent to be in charge of me.”

Phil smiled.  Good.  Now they were getting somewhere.  “Is that what you really want?  Because you’re not going to get it.  You get me, or you get nothing at all.  Which one would you prefer, Barton?”

Hawkeye had gone back to the staring by now.  “I want out.”

“Never going to happen.  You belong to SHIELD.  I brought you in, that makes you mine.”

“You can’t just make a human being belong to another human being like that.”

“You can’t shoot people,” Phil returned steadily, meeting Barton’s eyes.

“I can.  It’s all in my file.”

“It’s a really nice file.  Lots of really good shots, lots of neutralized targets.  But the same rules that say I can’t own you say you can’t kill people.  When have you ever cared what the law said before now?”  Phil blinked before his eyes could start to water, but his gaze didn’t waver.  He couldn’t hope to be unblinking, so he’d just ignore blinking entirely and let this little staring contest play out however it wanted to play out.  

Finally, Barton broke first and glanced away.  “Don’t see why you’re making me do this.  Why the hell does it matter if I can understand all this bullshit?  You’re gonna make me useless anyway.  You haven’t let me shoot since I got here.”

“You haven’t earned it.  You’ll shoot for me and only at my call.  You haven’t earned the right to a weapon yet.”

“I’m a sniper!”

“We’re going in circles here, Agent Barton.  Do you really think that the only thing you’re good for is killing people?”

Barton’s eyes snapped up again, going straight to Phil’s face.  “I can sing,” he said.  “I can dance.  I can walk a tightrope.  I’m good at lots of things.”  There was an edge to Barton’s voice and Phil wasn’t sure what it meant.

“Then why don’t you still work in a circus?  Get involved in something like Cirque de Soleil?  No, you think you’re good for one thing and one thing only.  You wouldn’t keep harping on it if you didn’t.  If you’re so good at killing, if it’s the one thing you’re good for, then _why aren’t I dead, Agent Barton_?”  Phil lowered his voice at the end, leaning in slightly closer, displaying that he wasn’t afraid of Hawkeye in the slightest.  “Have you lost your taste for murder?”

Barton suddenly stood up and started pacing, his feet hitting the floor hard.  “I’m not a murderer.”

“What about all the people you just bragged about killing?”  Phil watched Barton carefully.  Was he going too far?  How far could Phil push the other man before he snapped entirely, before it was too far, before Phil lost any ability to build him back up?  Phil had no idea.  They’d never been able to get a good profile on Hawkeye and he went silent, so far, when faced with the psych department.

“They needed to die!”

“Says who, Barton?”

Hawkeye whirled around.  “They were all bad people!”  He got right up into Phil’s space, standing over him, intentionally looming.  

Phil shook his head.  “No.  They weren’t.”

“I only take jobs that involve taking out murderers, rapists—“

“Wrong.”

“I never—“

“Never what, Barton?  You never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it?  I have a dozen files that say otherwise.  Do you really think of yourself as some kind of avenging angel, saving the world from evil one arrow at a time?”  Phil stood up very slowly and looked Barton in the eye.  “Because you’re not.  You’re just one more monster.”  Without looking, Phil snagged one of the file folders from the pile on his side of the table.  The pile he had been pretending that he was working on while Barton was supposed to be working on his GED.  “Here.  You don’t like the approved reading materials for your course?  Don’t read them.  Read this.”  Phil glanced at the label.  “This job, you were responsible for the deaths of two prostitutes who died from smoke inhalation when you torched the hotel.”  Phil shoved it against Barton’s chest.  “They were innocent girls.”

“I didn’t know they were there.  The intel was—“

“The intel was bad on that job.  I know.  Bad intel sucks.  I’ve been there.  But that doesn’t excuse you from responsibility.  It’s time to grow up, Agent Barton.  SHIELD may not take public responsibility for anything, but every single time you pull the trigger or loose an arrow, you are personally responsible and you will not get away with this sort of attitude during your tenure here.  Now read something, I don’t care what, but get reading or I’m going to quit my job.  And if I quit my job, you go to Assistant Director Fury’s tender mercies.”

Barton brought one hand up to take the file pinned against his chest.  “What if I’d rather take my chances with him than listen to you?”

“I really hope that you like both time alone and bondage, because one of his favourite ways to break people is to tie them to a bed and leave them there until they spill.”

“I’m a sniper.  I guarantee that won’t phase me.”

Phil snorted quietly through his nose and blinked slowly, deliberately.  “Then you’re an idiot and it’s no wonder you can’t do your schoolwork.”

“I’m not some little kid that reverse psychology works on, asshole.  I’m a dropout, I’m not stupid.”

Phil sat down slowly and took another sip of his coffee. He straightened his tie and he could feel Hawkeye watching him, could feel wary eyes waiting to see what he’d do next.  “Then maybe you can understand earning things.”

Barton opened the folder as Phil looked up from checking the front of his suit for any stray bits of lint.  “I’m listening.”

“You get nothing unless I say you do.  That’s how this works.  You like birds, I assume, from your little codename.  Once you finish reading everything on this table, I’ll get you a book on falconry and maybe you’ll understand what I’m doing.  For now, suffice it to say, I _do_ own you and every single thing that happens to you, from here on out, is at my decision, not yours.”  Phil motioned for Barton to sit down.  Barton did so without arguing.  It was one of the very few things he had asked that Barton had done in their whole acquaintance without arguing.  A victory.  “So you sit down and read.  If you need help, sound out the word aloud and I’ll help you.  But otherwise, you read until I say stop and then maybe, just maybe, I’ll give you a paintball gun and let you have ten minutes on the range.”

Barton’s eyes had already started to go towards the papers in front of him and, at the mention of a paintball gun, they snapped up.  “Paintballs?  Seriously?  You think you’re going to win me over with a fucking paintball gun?”

“Do you seriously think you’re going to get live rounds or arrows for target practise when you won’t even listen to basic orders?  You’re not ready to get a real weapon, but I am willing to let you practise, if you earn it.  Do you think you can earn it?”

“Why bother?”

Phil shrugged.  “I can leave you here with all this, if you like.  I have other things to get done.”  He didn’t.  And if he failed at this, he’d get busted down to the level of a first level recruit and he wouldn’t have anything to get done for a long time.  “But if I leave, I’m not coming back for 24 hours, to give you a chance to cool down.  I won’t tolerate every order I give you being questioned and argued.  I’m done coddling you.”

“You won’t really do that.”

Phil got up and walked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been so busy lately I sort of lost the thread of this, didn't realize how much time had passed. I kind of feel like this is a rehash of last chapter, with a different outcome, but I also feel that this particular series of arguments was important so they can start to move on. Next chapter we'll get to hit the range, I promise. It'll be fun.


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rewards can be a tricky business. Forward motion and setbacks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to deeply apologize for how long this chapter took. My partner was so sick he was in and out of hospital for several weeks, in excruciating pain and much of my time was spent in waiting rooms, begging for answers. My partner is feeling much better now, but it's taking me a little bit to get back into the swing of real life. My home is a mess from dealing with the dog's skin condition while my partner was ill and I'm a manager at a busy retail store and we're coming up on Christmas. Thank you so much for your patience and for bearing with my absence.

It took nearly two weeks for Barton to earn the paintball guns and Phil had to walk out on him a dozen more times.  Phil was honestly surprised that he got it so soon, but he found himself deciding to reward effort as opposed to outcomes.  And Barton had been putting forth some small amount of effort, so Phil thought maybe he should reward that.  

 Phil had found a top of the line paintball rifle and cleared the range completely.  He filled the hopper with paintballs, but put a small handgun style marker in his shoulder holster and kept a handful of paintballs back for his own use, then he went to Barton’s quarters and retrieved him.  

 Barton swaggered onto the range.  There was no other word for  how he moved.  He made it clear that he thought he owned the range, without having earned that in the slightest.  It irritated Phil.  Barton needed to earn that swagger.

 “How’re we gonna do this?” Barton asked, looking around at everything, peering carefully into the corners, at the cameras.  

 “I’ll give you the marker, you’ll fire it.  When you run out of paintballs, we leave.”  Phil watched his face carefully, trying to learn as much as he could about Barton.  He needed to get Barton onto the range properly, as soon as possible.  Fury was starting to demand results, as if it _ever_ took less than four months to get a turned operative mission-ready, even in emergency circumstances.  Phil was only barely a month into Barton’s training.  Fury was clearly trying to set Phil up to fail and he was determined not to.  Fury was not going to win this one no matter what happened.  This was a matter of Phil’s personal honour and his ongoing future at SHIELD.  He didn’t want to be an operative or asset, he wanted to be a handler and he would do anything it took.

 Barton just grinned, his entire being screaming cockiness.  “Can I get started?”  He kept well back from the markers, which Phil took as a point in his favour.  At least he knew enough to keep back from weapons until he was cleared.

 Phil nodded his assent and gestured towards the marker.

 Barton picked it up and immediately started looking it over.  There was something about the way he did it that made something prickle in Phil’s gut.  Something wasn’t quite, not right, that was the wrong word, but something was odd.  He couldn’t quite pinpoint it. Barton brought it up for a second and sighted along it, face turning contemplative, losing its grin in favour of the expression Phil had first seen on the sniper’s face.  This was a man who had a mission and nothing would stop him.  Another point in his favour.  

 When Barton stepped over towards the gallery, Phil practically held his breath.  What would Hawkeye do?  

 Barton raised the marker again, moving into shooting position, butt of the rifle against his shoulder and Phil frowned.  “What are you doing?”

 Barton lowered the weapon and turned back to Phil.  “What do you mean?”  

 “If that were a real gun, you’d burn your arm on the recoil, if you don’t burn the palm of your hand off,” Phil said, frowning.  What was wrong with Barton?

 Barton blinked, then turned back, his stance changing and his right hand going back to the grip.  He turned slightly, clearly thinking and analyzing, then fired off a paintball.  It went wide, missing the target in a green splatter.

 “I thought you marketed yourself as the guy who’s never missed a shot.”

 Barton shifted, altering his stance and then fired off three shots in rapid succession.  Bullseyes, all.  “You always miss the first shot on a new weapon,” he said.

 Phil nodded.  “They all have their own quirks.”

 Barton turned back to him.  “Yeah.  Guns are weird.  The stance is fucked to hell.”  He shook his head.

 And then it clicked.  “When was the last time you fired a gun?” 

 “About five seconds ago.”

 Phil rolled his eyes.  “That's not even a real gun.”

 “I had to use a handgun once.  Hit my target, but the guy didn’t die fast enough.  Hard to mark the heart through a parka.  It was really gross and totally cruel.  Pulled his handgun out and shot him.  Took me three tries to get the fucking safety off.”

 Phil looked from the target to Barton and back again.  “You’re lying.”

 Barton snorted.  “Nope.”

 “You’re a sniper who’s never fired a gun?”

 “I told you.  I fired a handgun once.  You know all my kills are with a bow.  It shouldn’t be that hard to figure out.”  Barton fired off another few rounds, shifting and adjusting minutely, hitting the bullseye every time.

 “But I assumed you at least carried a backup weapon.”

 “I wasn’t when you picked me up, was I?”  Barton rolled his eyes.

 Phil thought about it.  No, he hadn’t, sort of.  Three sets of throwing knives and, off by the window, a sword, but no guns, no firearms of any kind.  “Fair enough.  Continue.”  

 Barton made it through the hopper, hitting targets from angles that Phil hadn’t ever seen anyone make a bullseye from before.  Finally, he was out.  “Not bad, sir, but I’m way better with a bow.”

 Phil pulled a handful of purple paintballs out of his pocket and gave them to Barton.  “Here.  Load up.”

 Barton gave him a cautious look, but did as he was told.

 Phil strode out onto the range confidently and pulled out his handgun style marker from his shoulder holster, aiming it at Barton and pulling the ‘safety’ on it.  

 Barton narrowed his eyes, suspicious and maybe a little bit scared.  “Sir?”

 Phil started to squeeze the trigger.  Barton dropped down behind the firing wall and Phil’s orange splatter hit where his head had been.  

 Barton came up in another booth.  “What do you want me to do here?”  He looked a little confused, but less suspicious now that he’d seen the gun was a paintball marker.

 “Adapt and survive, Agent.”  He aimed at Barton again.

 Barton grinned.  “Got it.”  He ducked down.

 Phil enjoyed the next few minutes immensely.  Barton was good.  He had an almost intuitive knowledge, it seemed, of when something was aimed at him.  Phil got off about a dozen shots, each closer to Barton than the last before Barton winged him.  

 “Sir, I hit you.”  Barton was practically bouncing.  

 Phil looked down at the right sleeve of his suit.  “So you did.”  

 “I win!”  

 Phil raised his gun with his left hand and shot Barton in the chest.  “No, I do.”

 Barton stared at him for a moment.  “But I shot you first?”

 “Nonfatally.”  Phil grinned.  Ambidexterity was something trained into all SHIELD field operatives.  Even if it wasn’t perfect, they could all hit a target with their off hand, easily.

 “But…”

 “I appreciate that you attempted to make it a non-fatal wound, but in the field—“

 “Screw the field, sir.  I didn’t want to take an ally down.”  Barton’s face was hard, serious.

 Phil was incredibly glad.  With some of the things they saw in SHIELD, the fact that he’d rather incapacitate was a good thing.  “Do you want ice cream?”  Time for a reward.  Time to try and move him forward, increase trust, show that he could earn freedom if he needed it, get more privileges.  

 Barton stared at him.  “Ice cream?”

 There was no way in hell that Barton had grown up in a circus and didn’t know what ice cream was.  “Yes, Barton.  It’s made of milk.  It’s frozen.  Sweet.  Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

 “Why ice cream?”  Barton looked, if anything, nervous, uncertain.  Phil catalogued that away, trying to pinpoint the reaction and the reason for it.

 “Because it tastes good and we had a good game.”  And he’d passed a test.  He’d used his own best judgement in a mock survival situation and tried to avoid killing, even in a simulation.  

 “The mess doesn’t serve ice cream.”  Barton was still looking at him warily.

 Phil shrugged.  They didn’t, but that was okay.  “I was thinking of hitting Juniors.  It’s not far and the ice cream’s pretty good.”

 Barton stared.  “You’re talking about taking me outside?”

 “Well, we’ll have to get cleaned up, first.  I don’t think they’d like us walking in covered in paint, but yeah.”  Phil smiled.  “I think it’d be nice to get some fresh air.”

 “I think I’d rather not.”  Barton looked supremely uncomfortable.  “If it’s all right, I’d like to go back to my quarters and do my homework.”

 Phil frowned.  “All right.  If that’s what you want.”

Barton nodded, put his marker back on the table, then hurried out.  Phil, as required by regulations, started after him to keep an eye, not sure what had gone wrong.  They’d been doing well.  Barton had been co-operative, adaptable and surprisingly strategic.  Phil had offered a reward and Barton had all but bolted.


End file.
